What Joe Rogan Got Wrong About Michael Jackson

Testicles affect a lot less than you think (but also a lot more)

“You can’t get the right answer unless you know the right question.” — Deep Thought, by Jack Handy’s daughter Stephenie

You can tell Joe Rogan is a man. That’s cool. But come on man. Stop asking dumb questions lol.

TW: sexual assault, transphobia, homophobia, pedophilia

IP REFERENCES: Joe Rogan, Howard Stern, The Matrix, Michael Jackson, Private Parts, The Philip DeFranco Show, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Game of Thrones, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Stef Sanjati, Twitch, Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Aladdin, LegalEagle, Spider-Gwen, Jack Handy/SNL, Prism & Pen Magazine

Dear Joe,

I know you’re a busy man, so don’t worry! There is no need for you to read this!

Because never fear. The multiverse guarantees SOMEONE named Joe is reading this (and at least one of those Joes is you).

Despite all the criticism, despite all the hate, despite however much of it came from me — damn dude. You are like if there was originally one Mega Dude, but he got split into two people. One of them is Howard Stern. The other one is you.

Because you’re two halves of the same hosting dynamic. You make pretty much any topic and any guest into an accessible, interesting, compelling conversation. Though you clearly bring a lot more testosterone to the show than Howard.

Like I said. One man split in two. Was Howard made from your rib…?

NO ONE EVER REGRETTED GOING ON HOWARD STERN’S SHOW…RIGHT?

Joe, I think I’d get lambasted if I came on your show. I’m the tiniest version of a trans activist there is in the world. My last article was on consent. But you know what it was called? Avengers: Age of Consent.

Would you be okay only speaking as though we live in a comic book? How about a movie starring you and that other guy?

This is a good time to tell you that I have extreme social anxiety. I went through a lot to get to this point. Men scare me. Especially powerful men who on occasion make dumb and harmful comments about people with transgender experiences. People like you, Joe.

TRANSGENDER SOAPBOX RECOMMENDS: “Why does everyone keep telling me to stop JAQing off?” by Stephenie Magister and “This Transgender Woman Would Like To Assimilate” by Kitty Whitemore

You say you’ll listen, and you seem like a kind person. But think about what it’s like for a woman to face that kind of power and wish she’d gotten tickets to see you in your prime.

YOU’RE RICHER THAN ME, PLEASE FUND MY TIME MACHINE

Having said that…obviously I would come on your show lol. That’s free money. And as far as I know, a woman with trans experiences has never been on your show to tell you the damn thing.

SEE ALSO: DEAR CISTERS, YOU PROBABLY TRANSITIONED TOO

But since you’re busy (and this letter is fake), let me clarify a few things for you regarding your comments about Michael Jackson. You are extremely confused about a person’s sexual function after removing their testicles.

That’s not a criticism. It’s a learning opportunity. I daresay after as many lessons as you’ve given me (I already knew not to eat a horse’s butthole, but thanks Fear Factor??), it’s time I return the favor.

HERE’S WHAT JOE SAID

At the time of the recording, Joe confessed he hadn’t seen the documentary. In part because he didn’t need to. When Joe’s guest Brendan Schaub (THIS GUY AGAIN?!) expressed astonishment at the idea that people suspected Michael Jackson of abusing children all along, Joe couldn’t help but laugh.

Joe was old enough to remember creepy shit about Michael Jackson from way back when. “Just trust me,” he says.

For Joe and Brendan, the question stops being about WHETHER Michael Jackson abused children. The best-case scenario is that he was so traumatized that he retained the mental, emotional, and sexual maturity of an eight-year-old child.

TRANSGENDER SOAPBOX RECOMMENDS: The Philip DeFranco Phil’s you in with “SAD & DISGUSTING! Joe Rogan Used As Threat, KSI’s $2,800,000 LUNA Fail, Baby Formula Shortage & More” (offsite YouTube)

But that still wouldn’t make it okay for Michael to sleep with children. It’s a difficult truth I had to face about what my own parents did with me, including how much further both they and Michael went than just sleeping.

At least they didn’t escalate things like my brother into adulthood. He caressed me so possessively in public that people assumed we were dating. I guess that’s one word for what it was like for me as one of his abused women.

THE ABUSE HAPPENED

For Joe and Brendon, the question becomes not WHETHER the abuse happened, but HOW Michael Jackson abused children and WHAT biological drive might have motivated him to engage in explicitly sexual behavior.

And it’s here that Joe misses what might be obvious if he had trans experiences outside of his relentless pursuit of masculinity.

(Wait…doesn’t Mr. Rogan take HRT? You mean to tell me that mother****er’s hormones are store bought too?!?!?!?!?!?

JOE! WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!!!)

THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE OF SEXUALITY

“I think he’s a castrato.” — Joe Rogan, “Joe Rogan on Leaving Neverland” (Taken from MMA Show #58 w/Brendan Schuab)

A lot of women once had testicles. Now they don’t.

A lot of men once had testicles. Now they don’t.

It affects a lot less than you think.

Joe just can’t get over, however, how someone with zero testosterone would have a sex drive. Not how they could have a healthy libido or, as in this case, physical urges for inappropriate behavior toward innocent children.

It’s here that I looked into Joe’s own childhood and found a sudden swell of empathy ❤

TRANSGENDER SOAPBOX ALSO SUGGESTS: The Joe Rogan Experience: “Joe’s Childhood”

In Joe’s discussion with Brendan, I heard the same constrained experience of sexuality that a lot of men have. Even in barbaric times of war, combatants fought to maim and kill but hesitated to go for another man’s manhood.

The idea was that killing them was war, but if they survived, you couldn’t take their manhood.

Back in those days, if a person lost their testicles, they couldn’t jump through a thousand hoops to get HRT (also referred to as Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy/GAHT). They lived on as one of the most devastating losses in character history for Game of Thrones.

These days, however, getting HRT is easier than ever. Especially for a straight white man of privilege like Joe Rogan. It’s helped as much as limited his perspective.

When Joe talks about the experience of sex — be that his own or Michael Jackson’s — he doesn’t focus on the wrong things necessarily. He’s just facing the same thing a lot of cishet people face. Their experience of their orientation, sexuality, and body is far narrower than they realize.

So narrow that it prevents them from seeing what’s just a little bit to the left of what they said.

“If you’re chemically castrated,” Joe says, “you can still inject testosterone.”

He’s so focused on whether a castrated person can still retain the sexual functionality of a person with testicles that he’s missing what’s staring him in the face.

THE ONE QUESTION WE NEED TO ASK

What’s it like to have sex after you lose your testicles?

What’s it like when your body no longer produces its own testosterone?

It’s…different.

(For the other side about boys who never had testicles, read the eye-opening piece “Let’s Talk About Bottom Growth” by theoaknotes and “I Was a Drag Queen at My Own Wedding” by Logan Silkwood at Prism & Pen)

It’s not even the same as what you experience on hormone blockers. When you take Spironolactone, the hormone blocker stops your body from responding to testosterone. But the hormone is still flowing in your body. Those testicles are still doing their thing.

I DO CAGEFIGHT COMMENTARY IN MY SPARE TIME

Losing those testicles sounds downright awful for men who can’t conceive of sex without balls. They go so far as to get implants.

“Today there is a billion-dollar industry built around the weakness of men and their sex drive. Regularly you hear about guys getting ripped off…” — Are Men Victims of Testosterone or Patriarchal Socialization? by Emma Holiday for Prism & Pen

Some men treasure that fragile masculinity. It’s not necessarily BAD just because it’s fragile. Balls are easily injured. So are the feelings that come with them. And yet the sensations from testicles are what make those people feel as though an essential component of their existence is finally real.

They mean just as much to some men who never had them. So imagine what they mean to men who can’t imagine their loss.

To lose their testicles would mean losing a piece of themselves and their sexuality that they can’t conceive of living without.

Who am I to say? Maybe having their testicles is as essential to them as NOT having them is to many trans women. Maybe they really are unable to experience their sexuality without one or two bean bags.

But for many women with trans experiences, non-binary people, and those men whose bodies are as fluid as their minds (we love our GNC community), having and then not having testicles and testosterone doesn’t remove the drive or ability to have and enjoy sex.

No, really, google how estrogen affects your sex drive.

Or read this study if you’re into actual science more than middle-aged men ranting from the front seat of their car.

“Sexual Desire Changes in Transgender Individuals Upon Initiation of Hormone Treatment: Results From the Longitudinal European Network for the Investigation of Gender Incongruence”

-snip-

Conclusion: Gender-affirming HT only induces short-term changes in sexual desire in transgender people. Over a longer period of time, a net increase in dyadic sexual desire in TW receiving feminizing HT and sexual desire scores comparable with baseline in TM receiving virilizing HT, were observed.

Defreyne J, Elaut E, Kreukels B, et al. Sexual Desire Changes in Transgender Individuals Upon Initiation of Hormone Treatment: Results From the Longitudinal European Network for the Investigation of Gender Incongruence Study. J Sex Med 2020;17:812–825.

For some trans women, losing their testicles liberates their experience of sex. Even Joe has talked about the insatiable desire people with testicles so often cannot escape. Their balls make Baby Catalyst Cream all day every day. As soon as a person with testicles feels a moment of relief, of emptiness, of being spent and satisfied — their body keeps making more BCC.

(that’s by no means a description of how all people with testicles experience having testicles, so please pop off in the comments if you’re able to keep it non-erotic)

SO…WHAT’S IT LIKE?

“It was like a need that I had to control. A need that I had to satisfy.

I didn’t like it. I was controlled by it.

Now I don’t feel controlled by it. And the way my body is stimulated and stuff is completely different.

I’m not sexually passive, but I don’t feel the need to have sex all the time.

If I’m going to be sexual, I need it to be deeply personal. Now I’m basically like an emotional sexual person now.

I was ruled by my penis. I’ve heard that from a lot of trans girls. It was liberating to not feel like controlled by it.”

— Stef Sanjati, from upperCaseChase1 “TRANSGENDER SEXUALITY CHANGE?! (ft. Stef Sanjati)”

Once the people under discussion lose their testicles, their experience of sex expands into more than they thought possible. When they had testicles, sex was just as much (or more) about emptying their balls. The feelings that came with attending to those organs might be good beyond relief. Maybe even euphoric.

For a person who experiences dysphoria from having testicles, however, the sense of relief they feel from an orgasm is only in part (if at all) sexual. It is instead mostly (or entirely) about relieving their dysphoria.

Their testicles are ALWAYS making juice. They can feel it. Their balls make themselves known. If a person enjoys that sensation, move along. You have different obstacles to manifesting your gender.

But if you don’t?

THE ONLY CARD THAT WILL SAVE YOU IS THE ACE OF SPADES

If you’re a person that doesn’t enjoy those parts of your body sending spikes of desire to remind you they exist, you might experience intense dysphoria and compulsive sexual behavior. It isn’t a compulsion for the PLEASURE — it’s a compulsive need for relief from dysphoria. Remove the dysphoria and the compulsive relationship can begin to heal.

This experience of dysphoria is bad enough for people who otherwise might experience sex in a healthy way. Their dysphoria gums things up, but that at least is its own thing.

If a person also has an asexual orientation, then they experience libido differently than a person who experiences sexual attraction for another person. Their libido instead is a torturous mixture of need and relief.

Have you seen or been a trans person suffering with what SEEMED like sex addiction — but might have just been your compulsive need for relief from dysphoria?

Gender-affirming therapy can feel scary — as much to the people undergoing it as the people supporting their loved ones. Despite that fear, HRT/GAHT can also be what brings your desire (and experience of that desire) into a form meant for you.

It’s a big reason why Gender Affirming Therapy needs to be available to everyone regardless of gender (or lack of gender). Then maybe we’d all be aware enough to understand how a once-testicled person like Michael Jackson would experience sex after castration.

And maybe, just maybe, we’d better understand healthy vs unhealthy experiences of sexuality. Because lord knows I’m tired of Ben Shapiro using his enormous platform to spread more hateful messages about anything that confuses him.

ROGAN? ROGAN?

A healthy person continues to experience sexuality regardless of whether they have testicles and/or testosterone. Their experience of their sexuality may change, but that happens as we grow older anyway.

An asexual person may continue to have an asexual orientation.

A pansexual person may continue to have a pansexual orientation.

A heterosexual person may continue to have a hetero orientation.

And a traumatized person may continue to act out that trauma.

TRANSGENDER SOAPBOX SUGGESTS: For an immersive perspective on asexuality, read the novel Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (offsite link to Faridah’s website)

So this isn’t really to Joe. I like Joe! This is mostly to people like Ben Shapiro, JK Rowling, and anyone else who can’t stop themselves from conflating trans people with predators.

Conflating them is equal to gaslighting.

Conflating them makes YOU a predator of people with trans experiences.

“Most Christians would say that breaking one of [the Ten Commandments] is a Very Bad Thing to do. And yet, that is exactly what they’re doing when they call queer people ‘groomers.’” — Calling Gay People “Groomers” is a Sin by Esther Spurrill-Jones in Prism & Pen

How many times do you need to be told “THAT HURTS, PLEASE STOP” before you will, you know, stop?

Your confusion is not our responsibility.

But for a few more hundred words, I’m gonna talk about it anyway SO SIT DOWN.

CRACKED NUTS ARE NOT CRACKED EGGS

Michael Jackson was a victim of abuse who acted out his trauma by abusing others. In that manner, he is similar to pretty much anyone suffering with PTSD or CPTSD. We act out our trauma while we claw ourselves out and find a path to hope and recovery.

SEE ALSO: How do I tell my child that Harry Potter’s mom abuses women and children?

Some trauma victims grow up to become perpetrators, such as with my twin brother’s history of violence toward women — including his violence toward me.

His experience of sexual desire began at a young age. A desperate, fierce, unrelenting NEED for the drug that girls gave him. It didn’t matter that I was his sister. He used me to serve him, too. Even his generosity was just a piece to make people easier to seduce — and if they said they’d felt violated, his generosity made them easier to silence.

For a sex addict like him who engages in predatory behavior and sexual assault, the sex itself isn’t really the motivation. Chris Brown continued to act out terrifying violence long after Rihanna was gone. Michael Jackson kept hurting children despite enormous amounts of attention on him since childhood. My brother has violated and silenced women since we were children. Now he teaches groups of people how to follow in his footsteps.

Predators got to both of us when we were kids. They taught me to submit. They taught him to prey. They taught him — as he now teaches his students — that violating another person’s boundaries and consent only matters if you can’t convince them it didn’t happen.

“Your lover will stay only as long as she wants to under those systems, and you want to keep her even when she doesn’t want to stay. How do you pin her to your side, irrevocably, permanently, and perfectly legally?

You create a sick system.”

- from SICK SYSTEMS: HOW TO KEEP SOMEONE WITH YOU FOREVER by Issendai (offsite link)

Start with yourself. Convince yourself it wasn’t abuse. Bring enough people under your tutelage that you never have to face anyone you hurt for long. Build a system that empowers and protects you to continue harming, abusing, and violating people as your favorite drug.

THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNOWING THE PATH AND WALKING THE PATH

Predators only become more sophisticated as they get older. They have to. Otherwise they’d get caught.

Otherwise, they’d face consequences for the harm they’ve caused.

The ones who keep going are the ones who build a world that protects and empowers their addictions. They build a powerful bubble of prestige and positive experiences for so many people that when someone is finally brave enough to speak about the harmful and abusive impact of their behavior, the predator can call in countless character witnesses.

As though one billion other people never being abused by someone would somehow invalidate or erase the one person who was.

(but of course, it’s almost never just one person)

And yet a hundred people saying they never saw it, never experienced it, don’t think he’s CAPABLE — suddenly Johnny Depp can make people care more about his smile and charm than the abusive impact of his behavior.

Predators need that kind of duality in order to survive. In order to thrive. Their good works live on in public. Their bad works need to stay hidden. Have you seen what happens when a man publicly tells a woman her experience of rape was probably just a misunderstanding?

Even predators will show up to tell that guy whoa buddy, NOT IN PUBLIC.

(For a complicated exploration of these experiences, read “A Boy’s Wrestling Match Turns Sexual” by Laurence Best at Prism & Pen)

I’m aware there is currently a very public example of a celebrity (offsite link) using his power and resources to abuse his victim for daring to speak about her experiences of abuse from his actions.

But in general, abusers like him who use coercive sexual violence to get off thrive by carefully controlling which aspects of their abuse ever leave the bedroom.

My brother has built a handful of fake identities across the internet so he can declare his predatory practices in anonymity.

Michael Jackson built an amusement park.

LEAVING NEVERLAND (2019) (offsite link)

James recalls that he woke on one occasion to find Jackson saying that while he was asleep, he had performed oral sex on him. He also told the boy that he was Jackson’s first sexual experience and that this was just an “acceptable way of experiencing your love.”

Jackson would tell him that his mother was mean and that women were evil, pushing him away from his family and further into Jackson’s life.

“Even though it happened to me, I still couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that what Michael did was a bad thing up until six years ago. So I understand. We can only accept and understand something when we’re ready, and maybe we’ll never be ready. Maybe we will. So that’s their journey.”

— from ‘Secrets will eat you up’ — inside the shocking Michael Jackson documentary LEAVING NEVERLAND

When I saw this documentary in 2019, I hadn’t yet settled into my surgical certainties. My perspective was limited by my dysphoria and all my family had done to shame any of my attempts to reach a state of wholeness.

That abuse — from my father, my mother, my step-mother, my identical twin brother, my older sister — kept me from understanding how Michael Jackson could sexually function without testicles.

(hey, when I was eight, I still thought babies came out of butts)

The abuse also kept me from understanding how much the abusive experiences of those two boys spoke to mine, too.

At the time, I couldn’t quite understand what these boys described happened with Michael Jackson, even if I accepted it was true.

But I’d been through that battle too many times with myself to keep fighting. I didn’t need to understand it to see it for what it was.

I was gradually learning to do the same with my own experiences of abuse, particularly those with my identical twin brother. I lost more years than I can stand to think of lying for him, defending him, serving his need to make women trust and serve him.

When it came to my brother, I was an essential part of the amusement park that attracted his most vulnerable victims. His body doesn’t work the same way Michael Jackson’s does —pretty sure my brother still shops at Testicles R Us — though both love to sing, and for a long time, my brother taught people how to dance like MJ.

And like Michael Jackson, he creates a magical experience for his victims so that it feels too good to resist. If he does it well enough, he can point to that pleasure as proof it wasn’t abuse.

THE CHILD BRIDE OF MICHAEL JACKSON

In one of the most chilling scenes, James recalls the mock wedding the pair had, complete with a wedding ring which he still owns and shows to the camera. He claims Jackson would reward him with jewelry for engaging in sexual acts. “It’s still hard for me to not blame myself,” he says, with his hands shaking as he holds the many trinkets.

— from ‘Secrets will eat you up’ — inside the shocking Michael Jackson documentary LEAVING NEVERLAND

Most people are ignorant about the sexual function of a body that once but now does not have testicles. Given the scale of that ignorance, I wasn’t really surprised when so many people (including Joe Rogan) struggled to understand the mechanics of Michael Jackson abusing children.

Even if he had been chemically castrated.

The victims describe what would happen when Michael Jackson got himself there. It’s a really tough listen given the context .The most graphic descriptions for me involve Michael using the kids to pleasure himself.

Not just to feel good for a while but never go anywhere. Even without testicles, a person can still climax. They just don’t ejaculate. The orgasm itself, though, was never about the ejaculation. The ejaculation was a consequence of the orgasm.

Most people who once had testicles but now do not will continue to have active sexual function. If those people continue to have a penis, that penis can continue to get erect. For many people without testicles, their penis will remain a source of stimulation that leads to orgasm.

People who do not have testicles (but once did) can enter this realm understanding they may retain their libido, even if the intensity and experience of it shifts dramatically.

Don’t worry, fellas. If you lose your bubbas, you’ll be just fine.

AN EMPTY FINISH

Not to get too crude, but Joe, I hope this helps you see how a man could lose his testicles and still bust a nut.

Not to get too nauseating, but I hope this helps all of us see what motivates covert predators like superstar celebrities and the ones from my own family.

Like many abusers, Michael Jackson was first a victim of abuse, then a perpetrator. He had the money, the power, and the resources to live the lie. To bring them into it.

I once spent my life arguing with those kinds of predators. What a foolish ambition. It’s a mountain to climb, it’s true, but it’s also a journey that only finds an end when you run out of juice and fall to your death.

That mountain — because it’s a metaphor for abusers and predators like my brother — can’t be reasoned with. Can’t be bargained with. Every attempt you make to do so only feeds its addiction. And woe to you if what you feed it doesn’t serve what it demands.

The only answer is to leave the mountain.

We can never hope to change active predators, but through sharing our stories of trauma and recovery, we can empower each other so that we don’t need to.

AND NOW FOR…

SOMETHING SERIOUS: My Daily Routine In Trans Conversion Therapy Saved My Life

SOMETHING FUN: Claim Your Gender As Boldly (And Fluidly) As Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

THE END (DAMN GIRL, THAT’S DARK)